When I hosted a daily live morning news show in Brazil, I always wondered if all the international disasters really moved the audience in front of their tv sets. Everyone knows that part of all journalism lives on other peoples’ death and bad news. A russian plane crashing in Ucrania is front page news even though the majority of readers probably can’t even spot where Ucrania is on a world map.
Bad news sell, it is said. But journalists should use this fact not just to amplify human misery and explore the impact of feeling for marketing purposes but to add something positive, even if it means just teaching a little geography.
1 Comment
August 22, 2006 at 6:28 pm
i agree completely. and here’s a link for the exact location of ukraine on the map: http://www.kiev-ukraine-information.com/img/Kiev/maps/ukraine.gif